cause you ain't been to see me
for some time. Cal'late a little conversation will do us both a heap of
good, and clear up the air a mite."

Mr. Beaver again started for the door, but the Captain reached it first.
He closed it, turned the key in the lock, and put the key in his
pocket.

"Now, suppose you spin the yarn to me that you've been spreading round
town," he said, slowly filling his pipe and offering the pouch to Harry
Beaver.

Mr. Beaver spurned the weed of peace with a ferocious glare. With a
little coaching the Captain brought out the story. The gist of the
matter was that Mr. Beaver considered McGowan morally lax in the free
way he was mixing with the boys at the Inn.

"Let's get this straight. Who is the feller you're talking about? Just
repeat his name to me."

"M-McGowan!" defiantly repeated Mr. Beaver.

"When mentioning him to me,"--requested the Captain in a tone that made
the other man start with apprehension,--"you'll call him _Mr._ McGowan.
Understand that?"

Mr. Beaver seemed fully to understand, for he obeyed. When he had
finished his yarn of sheer nonsense, Captain Pott slowly laid his pipe
on the table and his hand on the little man's collar. He led him to the
door, and opened it. Harry tugged like a bull-pup on the end of a leash,
so that when the Captain released his hold--with ever so slight a
shove--Mr. Beaver described a spread-eagle on the cinder path.

"If you repeat that rotten truck to another soul, I ain't going to be
responsible for what happens to you!" He shot each word at the kicking
figure from between set teeth, and brushed one hand over the other as
though to clean them of filth.

Mrs. Beaver ran to her husband, lifted him out of the cinders, and
patted the ashes from his clothing. Harry Beaver stood irresolutely for
a moment, and violently shook his fist at the man standing in the door.

"Y-You'll p-p-pay for this!" He spit out words and cinders with gasping
breath.

Captain Pott went inside. He washed his breakfast dishes. He was by no
means as calm as he appeared. The whole day through he fed the fires of
his anger. That night he urged the minister to stay at home. He even
begged him not to go to the Inn. Mr. McGowan asked the reason for his
deep concern. The Captain could give none, except to say that the
microbes were working overtime. But duty called more loudly than his
friend's fears, and Mr. McGowan went that evening to the Inn. An hour
later the Captain's